86 " JoHA trULc-. HOCKe Y I nnovations and a New Game- T I e Penalty F ace- Off-In Rinkside Seats '".. I T seemed reasonable to expect that the new rules, allowing forward passing in all zones and penalizing teams for defensive tactics, would make the game different. I don't believe that anyone, before the season opened, realized what this difference would amount to. People who knew hockey well found to their surprise that they were watching an entirely new game. The attack that had once moved up and down the rink in familiar, strictly stylized formations had narrowed to a single, informal line. The line was furiously and continually wriggling toward each goal in turn, broken up here and there by individual scraps. A wild spirit animated it.' Ends and tangles kept blazing into fisticuffs, like a rope touched by sparks. It was harder to watch than the old kind of hockey. It was, of course, faster, but whether or not it was better fun was hard to say. N O\V that the season has got on a little, one thing about the new rules is clear-they have succeeded in what they were designed for. There is more scoring. One evening not long ago, when five games were played on various parts of the circuit, a total of DECEMDEI\ 7 l' 2. , teams get accustomed to the new conditions. The players them- selves don't bother to consider whether these innovations make the game better or not. The job of finding adaptations for what- ever rules the Hockey League sees fit to pass leaves them without per- spective for criticism. The crowds, however, that have jammed the Garden for these early games like the new arrangement. There is no question about that. Hockey is faster and rougher, and there is more scoring and less to understand about strategy. forty-two goals was scored. It is not uncommon now for a winning team to have nine or ten points to its credit. Last year a winning score of three was pretty high-often when half-a-dozen games were played, three would end in scoreless ties, and the goals scored in the rest wouldn't add up to ten. The men who have watched hockey all their lives are not impressed by these þtatistics. They miss the tensions and restraints of three-man combinations-all the old tricks of the game, with players ad just- ing their pace to fall back or come up " level with a passer. The new, rib- breaking, all-attack hockey looks like crude stuff to them, though they will admit that it may be different when the P ROBABLY the most dramatic ele- ment brought in by the new rules is the penalty face-off ten feet in fron t of the goal when a goalie has held the puck longer than the referee thinks he should have. No member of the de- fending team can stand between the penalized goalie and the centres who are facing the puck. This gives a sharp- shooter a great chance to score, and creates a lot of suspense as the two teams jockey for places around the referee and the crouching centres, digging their skates into the ice for a quick start. No matter how the face- off breaks there is excitement in it- all the more if the defending centre snaps the puck out and his own team gets hold of it, as the Rangers did I>.-.- - r ð